Page 103 of Original Sin

‘Among other things,’ he said casually, taking a sip of his drink. ‘I take it David has already broached the matter of a prenuptial agreement with you.’

She shrugged. He hadn’t, although she had been expecting it.

‘It’s obviously not the time or the place to talk about it here, but perhaps our lawyer and yours can speak next week to discuss the preliminaries.’

‘I’ll tell her to expect the call.’

Robert rested his glass on the wall and dipped his hand into his pocket.

‘I overheard the conversation about the Houston dinner. It’s very disappointing.’

‘As David said, I have an important meeting.’

‘Who with? He laughed patronizingly. ‘Some jumped–up twenty–five–year–old development exec?’

Brooke felt her cheeks run hot.

Robert walked closer to her. ‘Brooke. I know you want to be good at something. It’s human nature. My wife, she likes to place. She seats the best dinner–party tables of anyone in New York City. She doesn’t have to be good at anything, of course. She has a chef to make our food, maids and decorators to look after the house, but her placements are very important to her and they do serve a very important role in our household. Our dinner parties are excellent. What she is good at serves us both.’

‘What are you trying to say, Robert?’

‘David doesn’t need a career girl, Brooke. Look pretty. Be on as many best–dressed lists as you like. But know what your place is in the partnership.’

‘I thought I was entering into a marriage, not a partnership.’

‘David needs the right kind of wife, Brooke.’

‘In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s the twenty–first century. People marry for love not usefulness,’ she said, trying to keep her tone light.

‘I think that’s a little naive to think so when the stakes are so high.’ Robert sighed, his thin lips almost disappearing as he looked thoughtfully at a row of trees.

‘David and I are happy, Robert.’

His face remained impassive. Brooke doubted that Robert cared at all for David’s happiness. Looking at him, his poor complexion, the scars coiling up his neck, the features that on the surface looked liked David’s, but were in fact bigger or smaller – larger nose, narrower eyes and lips – making the construction of his face look out of kilter somehow, must surely make it impossible for Robert not to be jealous of his younger, more blessed brother.

‘The secret of success is to know your strengths and your limitations. To have the wisdom and resolve to bide your time,’ said Robert finally. ‘Our family has produced a raft of senators, four governors, a secretary of state and an attorney general. But we haven’t had a senior–level politician in the family for two generations now. My father sacrificed the chance to make serious money, and now he wants to convert that into real power. David is this family’s golden opportunity. He is our time. We have been waiting for decades for someone with the brains and the charm to go all the way. In politics today, image is everything. David has that. Since he was a little boy he has been able to charm the birds out of the trees. He has looks, contacts, credibility, money. He has style and substance. He even has the common touch. And, after that Islamorada episode, the heroics. He might well have served in ’Nam.’

He paused and looked at Brooke more closely. ‘David has all these things, and more. But what he also needs is the right spouse. A woman who knows that her own greatest ambition is to help propel her husband as high as she can.’

Brooke looked at him, shaking her head, a knot of anger in her stomach that felt ready to explode. Despite her earlier argument with David, she felt fiercely protective of him and of their future.

‘Whose dreams are these, Robert – yours? Your father’s? David’s? Because, as far as I was aware, as his fiancé, David is very happy in television. Certainly for the short term. If he chooses to go into politics, then I will support him all the way. My career isn’t getting in the way of anything important at the moment.’

‘Of course you would say that,’ he said sneeringly. ‘You’re not a woman who understands family destiny. Responsibility. Obligations. Which is why you are a children’s book editor at a second–tier publishing house, rather than contributing to the somewhat diminishing fortunes of Asgill Cosmetics.’

She could feel tears welling behind her eyes, but she wouldn’t let them fall, not for that little shit.

‘Why do you think David chose you when he could have had anyone?’ Robert continued, taking a step towards her in the dark.

‘He loves me,’ she said quietly, her breath becoming ragged. She had an ominous sense that Robert was about to deliver a brutal blow.

‘He chose you because you are good wife material. Compliant. Not particularly driven. Prepared to give up the day job. He has known what sort of woman he has to marry since he was a boy.’

A stab of fear penetrated her chest so fiercely that she could not breathe. She inhaled as if she was surfacing from deep water.

Good wife material. What did he mean? That David was not truly in love with her? That she was just the right type of woman rather than the right woman. Frantically she searched her mind for clues that David’s feelings for her were contrived or forced. Feeling her skin get cold with fear, the tears dangerously close to falling, she tried to block it out of her mind, at least until she was alone.

‘Every woman in New York wants to get married into the Billington family. Of course that privilege is reserved for a very few. Don’t blow your opportunity.’